But Lewis and his team of spokespeople (he has a personal representative, in addition to those who handle public relations on behalf of the outlet), would have likely been able to contain the mess, if it were to have remained isolated. Unfortunately for Lewis, it did not. Buzbee’s ouster led to the revelation that weeks beforehand Lewis had pressured her to refrain from publishing a story about his alleged involvement in the U.K. phone hacking scandal. At the time of the scandal, which engulfed Rupert Murdoch’s media empire and was revived by a new Prince Harry lawsuit, Lewis was a senior executive at News Corporation, a position that has left an indelible stain on his resume.
Murdoch sewer-meister spewing more garbage at the WaPo.
This is not disappointing. This is not sad. This is not bad. This is outrageous.
My “journalists are respectable, news media are responsible” lemming friend needs to grok this. This is normal. This is destructive. This is going to destroy us all.
It is outrageous as hell that a Fox News exec is new CEO of the Washington Post.
Is this the one Bezos owns?
How Lewis cleans up this mammoth of a mess that he has created for himself remains to be seen. Can he do it? One wonders what Jeff Bezos, the billionaire owner of The Post, who must be growing quite tired of constantly seeing his newspaper ensnared in controversy, thinks of the situation. Inside the newsroom, though, the sentiment is plain as day.
“He’s really losing the newsroom on a large scale,” a staffer said, sizing up the state of affairs. “People don’t trust him, don’t believe he has the same values and ethics as our journalists and there are major concerns of how far he would go to censor or shut down coverage.”
Oh look I failed the comprehension exam ☹️
Mmhmm
Yes, and his appointment was a clear signal that vested interests had ideas on how WaPo could better align with their interests.
Which is why this is so amusing. His baggage was a big reason why he was hired, and they had to know it would come out. No reason not to whether the storm and just communicate via friendly interviews and strategically placed PR/leaks.
Lol. Nope.
Yeah. Though…reading the numbers, it sounds like it was a pretty bad buy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Washington_Post
In October 2013, the Graham family sold the newspaper to Nash Holdings, a holding company owned by Jeff Bezos, for $250 million.[7]
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/22/business/media/jeff-bezos-washington-post.html
The Post is on a pace to lose about $100 million in 2023, according to two people with knowledge of the company’s finances
That’s a pretty large amount of money to be losing each year relative to the value of the company.
You could think of it as an expenditure (to control or at least steer the wider media narrative about news events) rather than a loss. $100/M for that is a pretty good deal, and quite affordable if you are Bezos.
It is quite literally about 24 hours worth of income for ol’ Jeff B.
100 million a year for someone who has hundreds of billions. Yeah, he probably doesn’t mind.
The Washington Post has advocated for a direct US military invasion of Syria multiple times and yet that didn’t impact morale apparently
